[imix14]

Less then a month ago i recently built a new gaming rig with the specs as follows:

Aspire 600w Gaming tower
K8 Triton GA-K8N Ultra-SLI nForce4 sli MB with a AMD Atholon 64 3500+ chip
2GB's DDR400 ram
ATI Radion Sapphire PCI express video card
2 additional western digital HD's 120GB and 200GB
A Memorex 20x DVD burner

For about two weeks the system ran like a charm with no problems but recently the system would randomly shut down anywhere from 5 to 30 mins of game time. Games are the only thing that appear to cause this as i can leave the system running doing anything else. I have tryed all the ussual problem solvers including driver updates reinstalls etc. I also thought heat had somthing to do with it but according to my bios my system is far from its threshhold and runs at about 36 to 40c. Games that have had this full system crash include:

BattleField 2
World of Warcraft
Half-life 2

Im open to any suggestions as i can not figure out how any "game" would cause a full system crash let alone 3 instead of returning to my desktop.
A final note on this problem is a strange and loud sound coming from the case near a time a crash would happen. ive stripped it down unplugged and looked inside and can not locate the source. As ive said these restarts and noise are at the moment only appear to be linked to my gaming.

 

[PurpleSky]

pls check the event logs under administrative tools (system, application) tell us if you see what kind of errors you see. under system properties go to advanced tab and under start up and recovery settings uncheck automaticly restart option. Post the error types to us.

 

[imix14]

A folder popped up on my desktop that i hadnt noticed before etitled Logs. A notepad file called cpu had this.

8/26 18:34:14.156 vendor: 2
8/26 18:34:14.156 features: 0000000F
8/26 18:34:14.156 sockets: 1
8/26 18:34:14.156 cores: 1
8/26 18:34:14.156 processors: 1
8/26 18:34:14.156 chip = AuthenticAMD
8/26 18:34:14.156 standard (1): 1b=00000800 1d=078bfbff 4a=00000000
8/26 18:34:14.156 extended (24): 1c=00000000 1d=e3d3fbff 4a=0000002B 8c=00000000

not sure what it is or if it means anything. once i turn off the auto restart option where can i locate these log reports to post for you?

Thanks again for the previous speedy reply,
Myx

*edit* I also assume ill need to recreate said error for the logs by attempting to play one of the games?

 

[imix14]

sorry also forgot to mention though my proccesor is a 3500+ the system info only has it clocked at 2.21Ghz. Any other info i can provide to remedy my problem just ask away.

*edit* k just keep learning new things about my problem and want to keep you guys updated incase it helps. The strange sound caused by the crashes continues when i turn the computer back on however cease when i unplug the system for the ussual 20 sec to prevent any power surges.

 

[sinclair_tm]

that strange sound is your bios screaming mercy. it thinks that the temp is out of range, a fan has quit spinning, or voltage is out of wack. i don't know much about your board, but i have a abit an7 with guru (bios settings changer from the os). i have found that once in a while the guru prefs get mixed up and it sets the alarm off, which requires me to go into the app, fiddle with settings and save changes wich rewrite the prefs and all is well again. i learned this from my puter doing the same thing. well, i set the bios to not turn off the computer if there is a fault ( very risky, i don't recommend this unless you are a geek and know what it is your are doing ) and when the alarm sounded, lauched the guru interface and looked to see what it said was happening. for me it was the nb fan not spinning. so i looked to see if the fan was in fact running, and it was so i told the guru to ignore it. closed the gui and then launched it again, turned the nb fan monitor back on and went on my merry way. maybe this'll give you some ideas.

 

[imix14]

foolish bios it knows i wont listen :deveous: . On a serious note the bios screaming sounds right since i went into my bios and turned on the temp warning but as i said temparture was one of the first things i looked at because we've recently had this miserable heat-wave. However 3 things constantly monitor my system including my case which atm is telling me my cpu is 35c and my hdd's are both 37c.
Ive opened the case made sure all fans were spinning and its cooler in that damn case then it is here . The heat requirment is just so damn high on this thing (somthing like 75c is the minimum) i cant immagine its trying to save itself
As for fiddiling with my system not shutting down i believe i did so following advice from the previous post but the computer still shuts down (and does not restart just *beep* dead). This guru thing where can i find it? my board has two bios which to my understanding if one fails the other kicks in. Finnaly if it were a heat issue is their somthing im missing about games that would cause erratic behavior with my fans bios etc?

 

[imix14]

Ive gone over all the log info from the time the shut downs would happen but nothing shows up relating to the crash or anything thats an error. This problem appears to be related to heat but their is nothing in my bios that lets me turn off the feature that saves my cpu at a set heat threshhold. The only option is to turn off the alarm. Is their somthing im missing or somthing in windows that could fix this?

 

[tinyhu]

another idea

Something you might want to check, along the lines of overheating, is your video card itself. I had this problem not too long ago where my video card was getting too hot and effectively shutting itself off and the computer. That temp setting doesn't show up anywhere that I could find. Most of the newer video cards, at the middle to higher end ones, have fans on them (and a heatsink) to pull heat away from the card itself.

The 3 games you mentioned that you play are all pretty high end in the graphics area, which will put more strain on your video card and cause it to generate more heat. And when a video card gets too hot, it will act just like your BIOS will and basically shut down, and your computer with it, or at the very least, reboot the whole system, without warning. The fact that you said your computer beeps and shuts off with immediately makes me think that your video card could be the culprit.

You may want to check that and see. It could have a bad fan on it, not spinning at all or not fast enough to disipate the heat it is generating while playing the games. It won't have a problem running general apps and Windows because it doesn't take much graphics to do that and won't overheat then, but it very well could and might be when you play your games.

 

[tiberia]

may be worth checking out if your comp is set to restart on a fatal error